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Ted Curson. Who remembers him?


Hardbopjazz

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(in response to clifford's post above)

Tru. It's just that much more severe that the commercial and commercial-ish zeitgeist-jumping that many of his peers in the progressive music community registered (e.g.--and to varying degrees--Robin Kenyatta, Bennie Maupin, Byard Lancaster, Norman Connors, Gary Bartz, Pharoah...) never really struck hard with Curson. There are the folks whose popularity/status has largely rescued them from the commercialism game, then those whose apparent reluctance toward "make a buck" deals left them sorta high and dry in the end (Curson is one, Marion Brown and Grachan being a couple others).

Edited by ep1str0phy
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Guest the mommy

marion brown went a little tiny bit fusion-ey, didn't he? he did cover a stevie wonder song or two...

and couldn't you also say that move towards a more mellow and i guess traditional sounding music (brown was pretty tame by the late 70s) sort of a nod towards commercialism in a sense?

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It's a gray area, but that album (Vista, right?) was part of the thematics of his Impulse run. At the very least, those more "commercial" sounding Impulse sides maintained a sense of openness and creativity that was aesthetically head and shoulders above the straight disco shit that a lot of the former free crowd was putting together (the same reason why I'll never write off Rahsaan's pseudo-ironic--but always creatively earnest--work in soul and soul-pop). I always got the sense that Marion wanted to go there.

As for mellow: well, I've always sensed a sort of quietude about Marion's work (Georgia Faun, the stuff with Hampel, the duets with Leo Smith...).

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I've seen Curson many times and always enjoyed it. He had an octet for a little while, including, if memory serves, Chris Woods, Nick Brignola and... Harold Mabern? Not sure. Anyway. He often had Brignola with him. Used to come through Paris and play with the Georges Arvanitas trio. I haven't heard him in a while, though. The next time he's in town I'll make it a point.

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Valerie saw Ted Curson holding court in the Hilton lobby!

I saw Ted Curson holding court in the Hilton lobby but Valerie and I never saw each other in the same lobby at the same time! Sorry we missed each other Val. We'll always have the "Bakery" and Ernie

Edited by stevebop
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Curson straddled the line in the same way Ervin and Barron did...

No Trane schtick, just really honest, hard, innovative and original playing.

I love the Barron/Curson LP on Audiofidelity. Has that bitch been re-issued on CD?

How 'bout that (I forget the title) Curson LP where he is wearing the Dashiki and has the

nutty sideburns?!?

Was it on Muse?

An OK LP.

Booop-boop-de-Doop!!

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Valerie saw Ted Curson holding court in the Hilton lobby!

I saw Ted Curson holding court in the Hilton lobby but Valerie and I never saw each other in the same lobby at the same time! Sorry we missed each other Val. We'll always have the "Bakery" and Ernie

and i tried my darndest. i even called boston to try to get your cell number! c'est la guerre!

xoxo

valerie

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Thanks to Gallo's "Brown Bunny" I found out about blow jobs and Curson's album "Tears for Dolphy". Thank you for the music, Vincent Gallo!

If this is it for you, two great discovers to extensively thank Mr.Vincent Gallo for, in my humble opinion

Edited by ArmandoPeraza
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  • 2 weeks later...

I picked up Tears for Dolphy due to this thread and good god damn I'm diggin it.

At the same time I picked up a copy of the Oliver Nelson / Steve Allen lp for $2.00 because I couldn't believe it could be as horrible as reputed, well its worse.

Is Tears For Dolphy back in print?!

A good friend of mine sent me a copy of it a few years back when it was OOP. What an outstanding album!

Then again, I'm a HUGE Dolphy fan!!!

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I picked up Tears for Dolphy due to this thread and good god damn I'm diggin it.

At the same time I picked up a copy of the Oliver Nelson / Steve Allen lp for $2.00 because I couldn't believe it could be as horrible as reputed, well its worse.

Is Tears For Dolphy back in print?!

A good friend of mine sent me a copy of it a few years back when it was OOP. What an outstanding album!

Then again, I'm a HUGE Dolphy fan!!!

Don't know, this was a used Arista vinyl.

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I also spent some time with Ted as he was holding court in the lobby of the Hilton hotel during last months IAJE conference. He's taken on the appearence of a buddha, white beard, full belly, giant smile.

He once told me a great story about his time with Mingus.

He had just joined Charles' band, a fresh faced young kid from Philly, and they were playing a club in NYC, The Showplace, maybe? Ted was soloing and feeling very good about what he was playing and the audience response to it. He finished his solo and while still reveling in what he had just accomplished he felt Mingus' breath on his neck and a whisper in his ear, "Ted, great solo! Don't ever play it again!

Curson told me he learned more about playing jazz in that one monent then he had ever learned in his life up to that point.

A photo I made of Ted adorns our website. He gave me permission to use it as our logo:

www.wgbh.org/jazz

Great story! Says a lot about Mingus and about jazz - at least jazz the way it should be played.

A Curson I've always enjoyed is Blue Piccolo (Why Not) with Steve McCall, Cecil McBee, and Jim McNeely - don't think it's been mentioned.

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